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Fat Joe f/ Lil’ Wayne “Make It Rain” (2006)

Fat Joe: “This comes at at a time when the South was just winning, winning, winning. I was on on tour and I was in Memphis, and this DJ named Larry Larry was playing dirty south stuff all night. I didn’t hear any New York hip-hop. I’m watching this fat girl dance by the speaker for like for hours, in the middle of the club, just watching her.

“So I got back home, and I said to Scott Storch, ‘Yo Scott, let’s go work on a beat. I want to make a dirty south beat.’ And he’s like, ‘Get outta here. That ain’t Fat Joe.’ But I’m like, ‘My man, watch how we freak this.’

I played it for Irv Gotti and he was like, ‘You’re cool with Lil Wayne. Get him to do [the chorus]. He’ll do it in a second. That way niggas won’t be so mad at you. It’s already a down south track, so at least it makes more sense to have a down south nigga on it too.’ I sent it to Lil’ Wayne, he sent it right back the next day.

“So like I told you, when I make beats with Scott, I’m there giving him ideas. So I said, ‘Yo Scott, like this.’ And he keeps making the beat, and I keep imagining the fat girl dancing by the speaker [in the club in Memphis]. So when he got it to where I could see her dancing, I was like, ‘Alright, that’s the drums right there.’ Then I told him, ‘Yo, we need them horns!’ And he put them on there.

“I originally did the chorus. I played it for Irv Gotti and he was like, ‘You’re cool with Lil Wayne. Get him to do [the chorus]. He’ll do it in a second. That way niggas won’t be so mad at you. It’s already a down south track, so at least it makes more sense to have a down south nigga on it too.’ So I sent it to Lil’ Wayne, he sent it right back the next day, and the rest is history.

“We had just left the strip club like two days before, making it rain. And I was like, ‘Nobody ever made a song called ‘Make It Rain.’’ I thought that was weird. People have been making it rain for years. Why did no one ever make a song about it?

“‘Make It Rain’ is bigger than ‘Lean Back’ when I go touring. It plays after ‘Lean Back.’ But that has a lot to do with Lil’ Wayne being the biggest rapper on earth. So I put that on after ‘Lean Back,’ and people lose their minds! We’ve done it live a couple of times together. We did it at Summer Jam one year together.”